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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A36018 Protestant certainty, or, A short treatise shewing how a Protestant may be well assured of the articles of his faith Dillingham, William, 1617?-1689. 1689 (1689) Wing D1485; ESTC R1392 22,130 40

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Imprimatur Feb. 13. 1689. Carolus Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. à sacris Protestant Certainty Or A Short TREATISE Shewing how a PROTESTANT May be well Assured of the ARTICLES OF HIS FAITH Let every Man be fully Assured in his own Mind Rom. 14.5 LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall 1689. Protestant Certainty Or a short TREATISE Shewing how a PROTESTANT May be assured of the Articles of his FAITH ALthough I doubt not but every real Christian is well perswaded in his own Mind of the Truth of that Evangelical Doctrine taught by our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles which is indispensibly to be believed in order to his Salvation Yet seeing that in these times there is abroad so great a paroxism and fermentation of Dispute about the Certainty of Faith and the means whereby it my be attained and such endeavours used by some Men to unsettle us therein It will be our Wisdom to recollect and consider well of the Grounds which we have gone upon that we may be the better able to hold fast the form of sound of Words that which is good our Faith and Confidence and our Profession of it without wavering unto the End. According as we are Exhorted 1 Thess 5.21 2 Tim. 1.13 Heb. 3.6.10.23 By firmness of Assent and constancy of Profession notwithstanding all the force and fraud whereby we are or may be assaulted And this the rather because our Faith is Precious and a Treasure the keeping whereof is of infinite Concernment to our Souls and because we have been forewarned by Christ and his Apostles that there should come Wolves in Sheeps Cloathing false Prophets pretending infallible Revelation from God false Apostles pretending Mission and Commission from Christ False Teachers bringing in privily damnable Heresies Men of corrupt Minds resisting the Truth Reprobates concerning the Faith and of this sort are they that creep into Houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with Sins led away with divers Lusts ever learning and never able to come unto the knowledg of the Truth Matth. 7.15 Ch. 24.3.6 8. Against such Men we have seen many worthy and learned Champions of the Truth enter the Lists being raised up by God to be helpers of our Faith and to contend earnestly for that Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints And although their Antagonists have used all the slights of cunning Wrestlers stripping and oiling themselves by superficial and slippery Representations like false Arms that their Adversaries might not know where to have them where to assault them or where to fasten their hold upon them and Proteus like transforming themselves into all Shapes that if possible they might twist themselves out of their Gripe and Grasp yet have they been so effectually handled by them that one would think that were they capable of any impressions from truth or shame they would either have come over or at least have given over before this time Both sides in making their appeals to the Readers do seem to allow us a judgment of discerning both the cause and their defence at least for our own private Safety and Satisfaction But yet they will be understood with this difference The one will allow you to use your Eyes until you have chosen their Side but then you must resign them lest you should chance to see whither they lead you but the other exhort you to keep your Eyes still in your Heads and to make the best use of them you can for your own satisfaction and security that you are fairly dealt withal and not betrayed into Error and Perdition which is certainly the most ingenuous Method of the two and most becoming a good Cause and a good Conscience The Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles is that Faith which all Christians make Profession to believe and they question not but it is the Word of God and therefore infallibly true seeing God is Truth it self and cannot lye But it is much Controverted whether this Doctrine be all contained in the Holy Scriptures or some of it transmitted to these times by oral Tradition or by some other way And seeing we Protestants do profess that all the Articles of our present Faith are contained in the Holy Scriptures as the Doctrine taught by Christ and his Holy Apostles let us sit down and calmly consider with our selves what assurance we have of these and then come to take into consideration those other Articles which are offered to us some other way In both which Inquiries we may receive much Assistance from what hath been publickly offered to us by the Writings of excellent and Learned Men. And I think if we can make out to our selves but these two things we shall have a good Certainty of the Truth of what we believe as all may who have the use of Reason I and will make use of it as they ought 1. That the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God revealed by him and committed to Writing by the infallible Guidance of the Holy-Ghost and contain the Doctrine of Christ his Holy Prophets and Apostles 2. That all the Articles of Faith which we Protestants do believe and profess are recorded in the Holy Scriptures as taught by Christ his Holy Prophets and Apostles and there contained either in express Words or in Principle from which they may be firmly deduced and concluded But before we come to consider these Particulars I shall observe two or three things for our more clear Proceeding and distinguish 1. Between the kinds of Certainty There is a certainty of the thing or Object which is here in the Doctrine believed or the Fides qua creditur and consists in its immutable Truth founded on God's Immutable Verity There is also a Certainty of the Person or Subject which is the firmness of the assent given unto that certain Doctrine of Faith on cogent Arguments and exists in the Person of him that Believes As for Instance That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners is a Truth certain in it self even before we hear of it But it is not certain unto us till we do know it certainly to be true This last is called Subjective Certainty and this it is which we are now chiefly inquiring after 2. Distinguish between this subjective Certainty or the Certainty of the Assent and the Kind of the Assent given The Assent for its kind may be an Assent of divine Faith caused by a divine Testimony and yet this Faith will have more or less Certainty in it according to the greater or less Certainty which we have of the Divine Testimony that the matter of it is true and that God doth testifie it 3. We must distinguish also between the Certainty or assurance given to another rational Man by discoursive Argument and that further Certainty which every faithful Soul hath particularly within it self For the Arguments causing them are differing and shall be considered